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Recount 2016: Controversy & Media Attacks Follow Jill Stein’s Demand For Electoral Integrity

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News

Dr. Jill Stein has been attacked in the mainstream media, threatened with legal action, and even created a divide within her own political party due to her attempts to audit the results of the presidential election.

“I think Jill Stein’s doing the right thing,” said Mark Crispin Miller, a self-described “election integrity activist,” in an interview with MintPress News. “I think it’s extremely difficult to argue for any kind of cynical or self-serving motive in this.”

Miller, a professor of media studies at New York University, has spent much of the last decade studying the results of U.S. elections. In the lead up to Election Day, he told MintPress that electronic voting machines in the United States are dangerously vulnerable to hacking and fraud. Now, he says he hopes recounts will encourage more voters to support election reform.

“Beyond their immediate political effects between now and the next election, what the recounts will do is make clear at long last that we must radically reform our abysmal voting system so that this kind of thing never happens again,” Miller said.

Massive Corporations From Chiquita To Coca-Cola Used Personal Armies To Uproot, Terrorize Colombians

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

On Thursday, Colombia’s Congress ratified a new peace accord that could end decades of civil war and weaken the ability of foreign corporations to turn a profit on unrest in the South American country.

Since the 1960s, communist rebel forces have fought right-wing paramilitary groups and their government allies in Colombia’s ongoing civil war. While the paramilitary groups ostensibly formed in opposition to communist groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, their targets were more often the civilian and indigenous population.

The Colombian government reported in November that more than half a century of armed conflict has left 7,011,027 people displaced, 267,000 murdered, and 46,000 “disappeared.”

Throughout the decades of conflict, massive international businesses have been eager to take advantage of the paramilitary groups’ skills to suit their own interests and move into land formerly occupied by displaced people. Some of the numerous foreign corporations accused of serious human rights abuses in Colombia include fruit companies Dole, Del Monte, and Chiquita, agribusiness giant Cargill, and other representatives of the fossil fuel industry like Texaco (formerly Texas Petroleum Company) and Exxon Mobil.

#NoDAPL Isn’t Over Yet: Energy Transfer Partners Vows To Build Dakota Access Pipeline

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News

Native American opponents of the Dakota Access pipeline and their allies celebrated after the Army Corps of Engineers denied a key permit to the pipeline builder on Sunday.

Citing concerns raised by the leaders of the Standing Rock Sioux nation that the pipeline would endanger tribal sovereignty and limit access to fresh water in the event of a spill, the Army Corps of Engineers denied Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline builder, a permit to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota.

Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners, one of several corporate partners in the pipeline’s construction, rejected the Army’s decision in a sharply critical press release published on Business Wire on Sunday night.

“This is nothing new from this Administration, since over the last four months the Administration has demonstrated by its action and inaction that it intended to delay a decision in this matter until President Obama is out of office,” the statement read.

#GonzoNotes 01: Life Under President Trump

Posted in Creative Commons, Gonzo Notes, and MintPress News

Donald Trump is going to be president.

That’s fucking ugly, so I want you to just sit with it for a minute.

I know some people are working for a different outcome. I will rarely tell anyone not to act, and this includes my comrades petitioning the electoral college to reject Trump, or supporting efforts to recount the vote.

Still, fundamentally, our democracy isn’t built for this. The electoral college was never meant to serve the people, and it never will.

Laid Off, But Still Gonzo: A New Way To Support Kit’s Writing

Posted in Journalism, Life, and MintPress News

A little over a week ago, I learned that MintPress News is “restructuring,” and eliminating most of their original writing, including my position as staff writer. That means the end of the full time job I’ve held since October 2014.

I’ve had a lot of adventures with MintPress, from getting banned from Nieman Marcus while covering the American Legislative Exchange Council to traveling to Philadelphia for the protests at the Democratic National Convention. It’s been a shock to realize that my work there will come to an end in January, and just days before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

2016 has been a bizarre year, full of unexpected losses, unbelievable stories and a few hard-won victories. Around the country, hundreds of organizations and thousands of activists and organizers are planning not just for January 20, but the next 4 years. I don’t want to lose my voice just as things are really popping off in America.

With your help, I can still be there on the front lines publishing stories of resistance. Today, I’m launching a Patreon account as a way of supporting my ongoing journalism. I’m asking my readers and fans to donate on a monthly basis as a way of keeping my writing alive.

New Study Suggests Cannabis Could Help Ease The Opioid Epidemic

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

A new study suggests that cannabis could help ease the deadly opioid epidemic in the United States.

Participants reported “a notable decrease in their use of conventional pharmaceutical agents,” including a 42-percent drop in the use of opiates, according to the pilot study published in Frontiers in Pharmacology on Oct. 13.

The study also suggested that the cognitive function of some medical marijuana users improved over a three-month period.

However, the authors warn that the study’s sample size was too small to be considered conclusive. Twenty-four patients were involved in the initial sample, and 11 returned for follow-up tests on their cognitive abilities three months after initiating treatment.

“While intriguing, these findings are preliminary and warrant further investigation at additional time points and in larger sample sizes,” the authors wrote.

Despite its preliminary nature, the Frontiers study joins a growing number of anecdotal reports that cannabis may help chronic pain patients reduce their use of prescription painkillers and help addicts ease the symptoms of withdrawal.